WHAT ARE "MOVIES"?

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In our ongoing quest to understand life and human behavior, we had to ask a simple question: why do people go to movies, watch tv, and read books? It's not just escapism, it's not just boredom, so what, really, is it?

So we thought and thought, and scratched our heads, and thought some more . . . and eventually, after much sweat and strain . . . POP! - a brilliant, unique, completely original answer just came to us.

And about two hours later we realized that lots of other people had said basically the same thing way before we did. So much for original thoughts.

The answers we found . . .

". . . the particular value of fiction over raw experience is that it imposes a pattern or a meaning upon life.

Life is frustrating, chaotic, illogical, fantastic, and, more often than not, apparently meaningless, full of useless suffering, pain, tragedy.

Yet man, as a rational and idealistic creature, craves order, plan, and satisfaction of individual potentialities. He may turn to religion, philosophy, poetry, or fiction for his answer to the riddle of life. If he turns to fiction, he wants some sort of organization, meaning, and pattern . . ."
- Mary Burchard Orvis

- and . . .

"The purpose of fiction in general is still, today, essentially religious.

What! you say. Religious? That's right, religious. Literature proves there is order in the universe. It says that, in life, moral choices lead to outcomes. In fiction there is meaning in human events. If life is chaos, and literature mirrors this chaos, there's no point to reading. If "Stuff happens," but events, choices, and conflict resolution do not lead anywhere, there would be no reason for a reader to read fiction at all. Readers read to be reassured that life does have meaning and there is order behind all the chaos. These are essentially religious sentiments."
- James Frey

So the difference between real life and movies is that movies have to make sense, where life, all too often, doesn't. Movies, television, and books are essentially bits and slices of real life that are broken down into bite-sized, manageable pieces.

And so if movies and fiction are tools that we use to, as Ms. Orvis stated, help us "answer the riddle of life," then there must also be even more to it than we've found so far . . .

To Be Continued . . .

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